How much would it cost me to buy Manhattan island?
How much has it’s value increased, since it was purchased by the first Europeans from the Indians originally?
This is in IMHO, as I don’t envisage there being definitive answers to this, and I don’t want to restrict this to factual answers from the OP only. Well, what do you think? I’m interested! Give me your best guesses.
I do recall that the Dutch bought it off the Indians in 1626 for 60 Guilders, whatever that may be today.
Then, in 1667, we traded it for Suriname. Which was worth maybe 75 Guilders, but it had bauxite, so it was obviously a good trade! :smack:
So, my best guess is that since we owned the island for 41 years, and it apprecated 15 Guilders over that time, that the annual appreciation of Manhattan is 36.58 Guilder cents. 336 years have passed, meaning Manhattan has appreciated 122 Guilders and 91 cents. Add to this the value when traded of 75, and you have 197.10. In Euros, that’s 89.81, which is $96.37. We’ll make it an even $100, and the place is yours.
Wow! Great links, Coldfire. That original purchase document is amazing.
So, if the Dutch had retained ownership, then NYC would be called NAC - New Amsterdam City?
Tell ya what ahm a gonna do…I cain’t really git you the island, but, you see that bridge over thar…
$100…? hmm I’ll have to think about it.
But seriously, what would it’s value be, now? Or is it so complex that it is impossible to calculate?
Well since I’m really bored I tried to calculate the purchase price of many major purchases over the years in todays numbers. I assumed an inflation rate of 4% constant, so here at the U.S. flea market the current prices are:
Manhattan: 158 million
1803 Louisanna purchase: 38 billion
1866 Alaska: 1.5 Billion
1848 cessation treaty from mexico territory: 7.8 billion
1853 Gadsen Purchase: 3.5 billion
Personally I’m gonna spend my money on Alaska. 
oops that Manhattan price is in Guilders
:smack:
Why didn’t I check?
Thank you, elfebabe!
Damn. I should stop spending my lunch break trying to sell Tower Bridge to Yank Tourists and try the Dutch ones instead
Why would you want him? He’d probably just put on that foofy hat and walk around shouting “BANNED! LOCKED!” and so on.
It was called Nieuw Amsterdam when we held it. And chances are that had we not sold it, you and I would not be conversing in English right now.
Why’d they change it? I can’t say -
People just liked it better that way.
Besides, it serves you right for kicking the Swedes out of Delaware. It’s not like you were using it anyway.
Probably not New Amsterdam, nor even Nieuw Amsterdam. You see, despite all of Coldy’s head-smoting smilies, the Dutch got something of a “do-over” in 1673. France and the Netherlands were at war, and the Brits backed the French. So the Dutch retook New York with a show of arms in NY harbor.
The place was – again – renamed New Orange (Nieuw Orange?), and presumably would have remained so had the English not gotten it back a year later, after a treaty was signed. So I guess you could say that the Dutch blew it twice.
[Smilie.]